Happy Birthday, Roe v. Wade

Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a decision that made a pregnant woman's life and health worth as much as a farm animal's, and put her autonomy in the law equal with the respect paid to the wishes a dead organ donor. How's that working out on the ground? Frederick Clarkson writes to tell us from RH Reality Check:

... In addition to the silence in the political arena, Zurek points to the silence in the health care system in which abortion is not integrated into the training of health care professionals; "because it is so stigmatized," she says. This same culture of stigmatization causes many patients to avoid even talking with their regular physicians about it, preferring instead "specialized settings" like Planned

Parenthood.

As a result, access to abortion care is a significant problem of health care delivery in the U.S. A major study by the Guttmacher Institute found that some 87% of counties in the U.S. lack a single abortion provider. ...

As Clarkson points out, increased access to abortion services isn't part of any of the healthcare plans floating around DC. It isn't in the Religious Industrial Complex's policy agenda. Thirty-six years later, women's right to comprehensive reproductive healthcare is the elephant. Either the white elephant it's clear some Democrats would love to get rid of, or the pink elephant they pretend not to see.